


Sleep, if you can.

by ElectraRhodes



Series: Delighting in Your Radiance 2017 [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Fear, Hannibal is a bit of a bastard, M/M, Right?, Season 1, Sleepy Hollow Case Fic, Trembling, Visions and Dreams, but we knew that, encephalitis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 21:11:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12350727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectraRhodes/pseuds/ElectraRhodes
Summary: “Tell me he didn’t take the heads?”“What can I say. The heads are missing.”Will’s heart sinks. Really? Is this..“Is this how it’s going to be Jack? Really? The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?”Jack nods,“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. All of you. Out there. The bodies are on ice. Well Van Garett and his son are, the woman they buried before they realised.”Jimmy bursts out,“What do you mean before they realised? How could losing your head be anything other than deliberate on someone else’s part?”Jack stares at him,“And that’s just one of the questions we’ll have to ask when we get there. Now chop chop. All right. Not the best thing to say. Get to it.”





	Sleep, if you can.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hannibalsimago](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannibalsimago/gifts).



> The third of fifteen (omgg) new stories for those wonderful people who backed the Radiance Kickstarter 'Delight' Level. Thank you!! The stories are linked as a series (and in a collection), so if you fancy it you can subscribe to the whole lot and as each one posts they'll just turn up in your in-box! Easy. 
> 
> There's a range of styles (fluff, humour, horror, fantasy, and trope), seasons (1,2,3 and post TWOTL, and SOTL too), canon compliant and AU (can we say coffee shop?), favourites (souls marks, ABO), and lots of wonderful characters (at least two Wendigos).
> 
> Each backer bid for a minimum of 1000 words of fic. Of course the prompts are just too good to only give them 1000 words. Bring the noise! This one has seven chapters.
> 
> This one is based off a wonderful prompt from Hannibalsimago... excellentl job my friend. Just wonderful. I hope I do it justice.

“Jack, really, you’re making it awfully hard to give these trainees anything like an appropriate education.”

Agent Crawford stares at him, his face impassive, though there’s thunder rolling round the edges, like a storm brewing over distant hills.

“That’s all you’ve got Will? I could tell you, your patter needs a little work.”

Will takes off his glasses. He doesn’t care what it looks like. Not the first time, and not since.

“What do you want Jack?”

“What I want is less lip, but what I’ll get? Come with me.”

Will is left to stuff his papers and lap top into his bag. In his haste he crumples his notes on the Shrike copycat and his attendant thoughts. He’d almost say he was getting somewhere with it. Each iteration of his talk, each reading of the slides, gets him closer, like some vicious murder dance. A date with the Chesapeake Ripper.

In the lab Zeller and Price are already waiting and Beverly is messing with the projector that displays images from the dedicated lap-top they use.

Zeller’s tone is only just short of outright offensive,

“Glad you could join us Mr Graham.”

Jack glares at him.

“We going to have a problem here? Don’t start Zee.”

Brian holds his hands up as if in surrender but Will knows it’s likely only a temporary armistice. Zeller doesn’t like him. Or at least. He might do. Maybe. Price tolerates him. Bev? Hard to tell. At least she talks to him straight. She has something of a handle on his sense of humour and wields it in front of her. Between them.

“What is this Jack? Show and tell.”

Bev snorts,

“Yeah. Exactly that. I’ll show and you tell. Slides came in from Westchester County, upstate New York.”

Will frowns,

“isn’t that?”

“Yeah. Shut up. Let me tell you.”

Jack huffs,

“Settle down.”

Will slides onto a perch on the edge of a bench, always and forever distant from the others. He looks over his glasses at the screen. Bev shoots the first image onto the screen,

“Jesus.”

It’s out his mouth almost before he can even think the word. Even Zeller, who likes to effect a hard assed edge whistles through his teeth. Jimmy Price goes a little green. For all that he likes the fundamentals of investigation he’s not a fan of full on gore.  
Bev reads off some notes on a tablet,

“Local guy. A Van Garett.”

She clicks forward a slide and they all wince, a kid this time.

“His son. Dirk.”

She clicks forwards again and it’s a woman this time.

“And this woman. No relation to the other two. Also local. Emily Winship. And yeah Will, before you get all up in my grill. They’re the same names.”

Will gets up and walks towards the images on the screen, blinking slowly, he can feel the bleed filling his mind, filling all of him, he resists it, lets it fall back away.

“Same kind of deaths too. Linked? Same weapon?”

“Didn’t find it. But broadly? Looks like. The coroner is near shitting himself.”

Will looks over at her.

“Are these names common out there?”

Jack interjects,

“All over the county and the state lines. Dutch colony originally, the families go way back. A lot of connections. And I mean a lot. And there’s a lot of interest in the cases. Pressure to close it down fast.”

Will leans forwards again and gestures to Bev to run the slides back, he stares at the kid and then the adult male when she flicks back again.

“They think it’s a local?”

“There’s hardly anyone there to have the thought. Tiny force, 24 officers, not all of them full time. This is well outside their usual.”

He nods.

“Tell me he didn’t take the heads?”

“What can I say. The heads are missing.”

Will’s heart sinks. Really? Is this..

“Is this how it’s going to be Jack? Really? The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?”

Jack nods,

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. All of you. Out there. The bodies are on ice. Well Van Garett and his son are, the woman they buried before they realised.”

Jimmy bursts out,

“What do you mean before they realised? How could losing your head be anything other than deliberate on someone else’s part?”

Jack stares at him,

“And that’s just one of the questions we’ll have to ask when we get there. Now chop chop. All right. Not the best thing to say. Get to it. Will? A word?”

Will hangs back as the other three members of the team start to pack crates and equipment. He has a bad feeling about this. A bad feeling. He tries to forestall what ever Jack is going to say,

“Look I know I said it was hard to look. But I can manage Jack. I don’t need a babysitter.”

He goes all out,

“Please.”

Jack looks at him with maybe the very smallest amount of sympathy,

“It’s not an option Will. The OIG have got opinions on this. And when the OIG have got opinions I listen to whatever they have to say. I choose the battles to fight Will. And some of them it’s better not to fight at all. This is one of them. Dr Lecter is coming with us. Don’t argue.”

Will opens his mouth and then re-considers. Jack’s right. This is an argument he can’t win. Better to save his ammunition. Idly he fiddles with the bottle of aspirin in his pocket. He’ll have to ask Alana to watch the dogs.

............................................

Will sleeps with his head rested against the passenger window of the Bentley. The heated seats and countless sleepless and dream addled nights tipped him over quickly. Hannibal glances at him and is mildly surprised by a surge of something he faintly remembers to be tenderness.

It is somewhat unfortunate for Will that Hannibal considers him to be beautiful in his suffering. Even if no one else is allowed to say so. Donald Sutcliffe has learnt that the hard way.

He considers the reasoning behind Jack’s insistence that he accompany the team to this outpost of New York State. Of course he’s familiar with Irving’s darkly humorous story and has re-read it to remind himself of the main tenor and territory. And of course he sees some parallels with his own intertwining narratives. The revenge parts at least. And Will would make an interesting Ichabod Crane. Will make one. Maybe a small nudge in the right direction? Though what he will make of it with his unparalleled mind is something for Hannibal to relish.

In amongst the fevered sweetness of Will’s disconnect with reality the playfulness of the Hessian horseman and the Witch are both elements he can hardly wait to explore with his good Will.

There may be no burning stags here, but Hannibal wonders if the horseman will wear Garrett Jacob Hobb’s face at all. Or if it will simply be a grinning skull. He rolls his shoulders, the sign that flashes past on the I-95 alerts him to the nearness of their destination. In his pocket his cell buzzes an alert. Probably Jack Crawford with directions to their less than ideal motel.  


Though he considers that the opportunities will far outweigh the discomforts. For now, at least.

....................................................


End file.
